The Digital Future Lab (DFL) approaches creative and speculative projects from a radically diverse team perspective, expanding our common notions of diversity to include neurodiversity and other kinds of differences. Our teams aren’t just diverse, they’re radically diverse and highly effective.

The below video features gameplay footage from our upcoming commercial game Corrupted(shipping on PC/Mac holiday 2016), initially designed by DFL in the service of a National Science Foundation grant to develop simple game-based teaching materials to support introductory programming classes. Corrupted captured the interest of UW’s technology commercialization team, and we were funded to reimagine the IP as a complete game experience.

Corrupted began as a simple variant of well-understood casual games, but developed a unique style and rich narrative as the team became more diverse. Corrupted is also a research tool for gathering data on HCI conventions and techniques.

Design Slam

DFL mixes and remixes research, social justice, performance, speculative design, commercial game development, gender studies, and more to make things with meaning. We’re showing the world that radically diverse teams can reach otherwise inaccessible creative insights while also becoming exceptionally productive and efficient.

Much of our work explores the intersection of virtual and physical spaces. The below is an excerpt from the DFL’s first short film Virtually Physical, created to help frame the studio’s focus.

Excerpt from the short film Virtually Physical, exploring the intersection of physical and digital design.

Ghastly Logic Puzzles!

Another project that began as an NSF-funded research tool became the DFL’s first shipped commercial title, the puzzle game Ghostlight Manor. As was the case with Corrupted, the IP developed a large fan following on campus and secured funding for commercial production. Ghostlight Manor launched on iOS and Android tablets for the Halloween 2015 season, and an expanded PC/Mac version is scheduled for Halloween 2016.

Watch the trailer for the v1 mobile game below, and learn more about Ghostlight Manor on the Ghostlight product page.

Ghostlight Manor is a broadly leveraged research tool and commercial IP developed by the DFL

An Allegorical Voyage

DFL is developing a long-term speculative project code named Voyage, an allegorical tale that chronicles an alien species as they flee a beloved planet destroyed by its own sun. I’ve challenged the studio to build a transmedia experience that re-imagines science fiction as if none of the current tropes exist, paying particular attention to issues surrounding representation and violence; the experience is being designed to avoid common gender associations, combat scenarios, and other problematic plot devices.

Voyage is preparing to seek significant investment funding as a new transmedia IP (including VR devices). Visit the Voyage product page for more information.

Panels from the Voyage graphic novel EXO, illustrations by Keezy Young

3D renders of the Voyage universe

Please contact jasonpa@uw.edu for more information about the Digital Future Lab.